Well, being a college student for the last couple years I think this article is merely Captain Obvious to the rescue. Though I am comfortably secure in my financial situation due to multiple scholarships, the current economic situation is making me very anxious about the upcoming semesters.

My school/department receives a very large amount of funds. But will that start to wither away (especially as the economic crisis dries up private investment)? I fear that even the money promised to me for next semester is insecure.

Added to what I am expecting will be a decrease in aid, tuition will probably increase next semester, and the following semester at a rate higher than promised last semester. There's not much time to think about all of this (especially now, the week before finals). If I do, my grades may suffer and that will threaten my scholarships.

I can't imagine what its like for those in more precarious situations. All I can say is that I will begin aggressively pursuing more scholarships as soon as this semester ends and continue to do so until I graduate.

College can be affordable but one will most likely have to:

1. Get amazing grades and/or be a brilliant researcher or writer (for scholarships, grants). Spend all ones time keeping up a perfect GPA/other amazing skills and/or (most likely the former):

2. Get a job

3. Change their major to one hosted by a department that offers more aid or is favored by the government's or major institutions' grant programs

4. Get a job

5. Take out loans, possibly large amounts from other sources than the government. Luckily there are many loan forgiveness programs.

7. Wait until one becomes an independent student (age 24) and feed off the fact that one makes absolutely no money in order to get the full amount of aid possible

Let's see. By various means, government tried to make housing "affordable." There followed a boom in construction and a boom in house prices. Then there followed collapses and defaults. Over the past several decades, government has tried, by various means, to make a university education "affordable." This produced a boom in growth of universities, in administrator and educator salaries and perks, and in debt financing of university educations. What do you think is coming next?

And why has college tution risen so much stronger; it's the same reason that our infrastructure got a D from the American Society of Civil Engineers, it's the same reason 45 million Americans do uninsured and 2 million go bancrupt paying for care each year: LACKLUSTER INVESTMENT IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR. Let's face it, that's what "small government" works out to - less freedom and fewer rights because less is investment for those instutions that create opportunity and facilitate liberty.

This is one more thing widening the gap between rich and poor and shrinking the middle class. Higher education can't become a playground for trust fund babies and wealthy foreign scholars in this country, which rose on the strength of widespread and affordable education. I am concerned about my grandchildren's future. My tiny college debt was paid off within a year of graduating; my children are struggling to make ends meet with huge education debt. I hope I live long enough to see some kind of balance return!

I have two young children. The College Board cost calculator indicated that for in-state colleges, our cost will be about $300,000 for the children. Private college will cost $800,000.

We put away $4,000 for each child in a 529 every year. With a 5% return (I know- optimistic), we will have about $200,000 when they reach college. So we are looking at a $100,000 shortfall for in-state schools and a $600,000 shortfall for private schools.

So the bottom line - private schools are not an option and we will have to increase savings to cover in-state tuition. However, we have to save for retirement as well. I guess most Gen X folks are in the same boat.

College hasn't been affordable in a long time. What is necessary is to stop telling kids they have to go to a private school with all the debt it brings with it, and use the state or city college system available to them.

The best gift we can give our children is to live within their means. Piling on the debt to send them to college is not the way to do so, gives them a false sense of entitlement, and sends them into the world with a mortgage on their heads.

The phenomenon of rising tuitions in American colleges and universities is nothing new ; this upward spiral has continued, unabated, for more than forty years and has never correlated with median family income in the United States. Perhaps the time has come for this debate to move into the public arena, especially for those institutions which are supplemented by tax payers, and discover what portion of these increases is ear marked for salaries and benefits of teaching staff. Conventional wisdom has traditionally portrayed the "college professor" as a dedicated, highly underpaid, mentor who counselled and tutored students, while also conducting various research projects. If, indeed, that image ever represented 'reality', it is no longer the case.
Institutions must also demonstrate the degree to which they educate students; that anyone has attended and graduates does not guarantee an "education." We have all seen those 'candid interviews' in which college students are unable to correctly answer "basic knowledge" questions. It is no secret that education in America at every level has "dumbed-down" during the past two decades, or so.
If American colleges and universities continue to "price" themselves out of the 'marketplace', perhaps we should allow Darwinian theory to intervene. Admittedly this could take a generation before the "desireed effect" would become evident, but the wait would be worthwhile. American education must return to those 'basics' which originally placed it at the forefront, world-wide. If institutions will not voluntarily make themselves "affordable", the 'consumer' should look elsewhere. That could include international options, or by-passing a 'college' education entirely, among other possibilities.
Americans should also become aware the degree to which increased tuitions subsidize various 'scholarships' and foreign-student admissions, especially at the graduate level.

Interesting article. But you don't get at the root causes, which baffles everyone I talk to about this. WHY are costs going up so high at private colleges, with their huge endowments? Business costs are not going up that high that fast. Inflation? Nope. It cost $6,000, all inclusive, for my private 4-year college in 1984. Today it costs over $30,000. It's ridiculous and indefensible.

In 1970, soon after introeuced the 3/4 inch U-Matic videoassette player, a Harvard Business SchoolProfessor named J. Sterling Livingston, speakihg to a group of Coca-Cola USA executives, announced: "We will soon be able to deliver higher education for $1 a point." He wad right. But the ability to do so and the willingness to do so are not the same! Colleges have been as caught up in mpney madness as the banks and professional sports have been. We are now reaping what we have sown!

Why has the cost of running just about every institution, be it government, the military or major corporations risen at such an astronomic rate while incomes have remained pretty much stagnant. If the money isn't going into peoples pockets, where is it going?

Some attention to college costs by those outside academia is urgenty needed.

An elite libera arts college in the north east which charges $50,000 in total fees, e.g., determines its tuition, not on the basis of needs, but by aiming to be in the middle of a group of its peers. To fall below its peers would result in being seen as less elite. So tuition is always increased by 6+% each year. Last year, when Spellings threatened to create a watchdog group of those who raised tuition above 6%, the college promptly lowered its raise to 5.9% in order to avoid scrutiny.

Self-regulation, in the case of colleges led by unethical leaders and driven by unethical goals, does not work. The same college president spent nearly 4 miion renovating his house, arranged for his wife to receive an unspecified annual honorarium, deflected endowment funds away from their specified use into general budget relief to make up for his increased and expensive habits such as a wardrobe coach to build his wardrobe, etc. etc.-- all these expenses are undoubtedly the benefit of steep annual tuitional increases at the college.

As in the case of Wall Street, the academy needs to be regulated better, and from the outside!

Median family income is a misleading stat to use. The gains in median family income occured prior to the 21st century. While family income has stagnated or declined in the bush years college costs have skyrocketed because of the bush/republicon/reagaite policies of cutting taxes for the rich, and therefore cutting aid to state schools. It is just one more area where the conservatives have undermined the very things that made America the greaest nation on earth.

Distance learning and certification programs should be a lot cheaper and more broadly available. I wonder if American colleges will retain the broad global appeal they had during the boom years and what careers parents will desire for their children. If education is to remain competitive on the global market it needs to go through the same mean and lean downsizing that crushes industrial waste.

When the economy returns I expect there will be new industry, new skills and a different community to educate. Hopefully industry and education can redefine themselves with rapid avenues to prepare the young for OJT and help the aging population remain productive.

Is anybody asking how much state aid to public colleges & universities has increased (or decreased relative to inflation and enrollment) over this time period?

If education is a priority then states need to increase (not decrease) support of the public schools at least in proportion to inflation and enrollment. The recent decreases in funding clearly contribute to higher tuitions.

Looks like kids will have to start going to the local college and living with their parents, instead of going away to college and (the parents) paying additional amounts for room and board. It's just a common-sense move that will save half of college costs.

The kids will simply have to delay "leaving the nest" for a few more years.

Another case of incompent people in charge of something ,they donot understand. They need too know that having students graduating with too much debt will be more drag on the economy, nothing left to spend on other than basic necessities.The states are also responsibile in this that they just keep on adding too many administrators, at salaries they donot deserve.There has to be an overall reduction in spendig.All goverments need to do this including the Federal, or the great depression will be nothing in comparison to what we are facing today. These bailouts are not going to help because they donot understand, we need the regulations that were put in place after the depression. PRAY GOD WILL SHOW US THE WAY TO RESTORE THIS NATION,TO WHAT HE MEANT IT TO BE.

I live in a neighborhood largely populated with college professors at a good sized state university and it is amazing to hear them complain about salary levels when their annual increases have consistently outpaced inflation. With the exception of a couple of business, engineering, and law school professors respectively none of them have made good the threat to go to the private sector where they will be "more appreciated." Their kids also get a tuition break unlike public educators or mere taxpayers.

So it now takes 28% of a family's income to send a child to college? Well, well, let's see. It used to take 28% of one's income to be considered maximum for a house payment. Now, if the family has a major illness, with the way people mortgage their homes to pay for their children's college, everyone loses because now there is no home, no college, no nothing. What is wrong with this country? You don't need a PhD in Economics to do arithmetic. As long as there are martyrs out there that will do whatever it takes to send their children to college, the schools will continue to raise tuition. Let's face it. Higher education is a BUSINESS, and everyone seems like they're buying into the fact that without this education at a high cost, you'll never make it in this country. Well, I'm telling you right now. It took me 15 years to get my degrees and I worked my way through school, only to find there are no jobs out there that will hire and pay a livable wage. One thing is for sure, though. While I earned and went to school, when I finally graduated, I had no debt, and all those years of earnings belong me. Along with those earnings came experience. Even though it was hard, I wouldn't do it any other way. Financially, it's superior. But, know this -- it takes a certain kind of person and guts to do it that way. Most of the younger people I know today want the "college experience." Well, that experience comes at a very high cost, and usually on the backs of their parents. I'm sure that most people realize that this type of mentality is over in this country. We just can't afford it. As for those young people who are less educated than those ahead of them, what's their problem? They most likely have degrees that their parents don't have and after having worked with some of them, they just don't apply themselves because they believe themselves to be entitled. Bad work ethic, inability to interact with people face-to-face, inability to critically think themselves out of problem circumstances, yes, their college education is quite wasted. I make more working in the trades than I have ever earned using my college education. What does that tell you? Yes, it's nice to have the degrees hanging on my wall. They make nice wall paper. They sure don't make much money! At least, not here in the Cleveland area.

This is very discouraging news during a time of nursing shortages and shrinking numbers in some medical specialties in particular. This is part of the spiral of the economic crisis, the huge burden of debt for a basic education. What has happened to the most powerful country in the whole world? We cannot educate our children nor take care of our sick. It is time to stop listening to the politician's propaganda that this is the best country in the world at everything we do. That's just an excuse to do nothing. Yes, this is a wonderful country but we can't just sit here and let it slip through our fingers.